Chapter Text
Prologue
She was never unfamiliar with the concept of roommates, since the first year of school was spent in a double closet named a dorm, and the second all through the fifth years were shared with a steady housemate. When said housemate bolted, Trinity didn't announce the vacated room to packed auditoriums.
Liked the quiet which came from not finding groups of random people at her couch and eating from her fridge. Liked thinking of not having to think of letting someone know she was coming home for the day.
The air felt both lighter and steadier after class, after work. Always stale despite the ever-existing mess on the counters and tables which betrayed the inhabitant a med student made. Nothing to be done about the lack of oxygen in these walls; many things to do to keep her lungs up to speed with the change of pressure lingering in the apartment’s silence.
Silence that could be broken with a click on the remote to have the TV going in the background, a click on the radio to have music drift through the space. The mindless noise kept the stale air from drifting and solidifying in the sulci of her brain. Sometimes, Trinity even kept the music on while she slept.
Sometimes, she thought loneliness breathed that same stale air and kept growing from it. Loneliness persisted like mold in the walls.
Sometimes, she misquoted from high school’s biology textbook; oxygen circle surely checked itself by the door. Respiration had to work with little oxygen and too much carbon dioxide in here.
It was the apartment, Trinity was sure, since opening the windows didn’t do shit about the lack of fresh air. It was the microcosm of this apartment, now imprinted on Trinity’s very cells, who was forced to carry it everywhere else like a virus, sucking the fresh air out of every other room.
Sometimes, she thought –
Shit.
No wonder Whitaker packed his bags every other weekend and –
No, no. Trinity knew that wasn’t fair. Knew what her thoughts sounded like when spiraling.
Knew no microcosm existed in the damn apartment, knew nothing was wrong with the air quality and – fucking hell – she had checked about the mold. There was no mold in the walls.
Knew she could fill up the place with studying groups lasting late into the night, large hangouts full of laughter and drinks, hookups able to stay until morning. Knew she could get rid of the silence for hours a day, just enough to get herself together.
The stale air returned, always.
I am going to take that minute to try to instill in Dr. Santos a very clear understanding of what her role is here –
It was in her head, all of it. Trinity was very well aware, thank you very much. The loneliness had been physically manifesting as a pressure in her chest since a sudden phone call. Since she was the only one of the two who got to turn sixteen, seventeen, eighteen; twenty-seven, now twenty-eight. Since the news she had hoped held no truth.
– and how she is expected to function.
Whitaker proved all of that. This mouse of a guy at Trinity’s first day of work, when he said he was between houses. But worse of all, Whitaker didn’t at all look like he had any means or plan of changing that.
Offering him the vacated room hadn’t been –
By that point, Trinity made an effort to never be home for long anyway. A half an hour shower after work, a change of clothes, keys and wallet in hand, jacket on.
The familiarity of the gym until her body trembled from exhaustion. Or a long drink at the bar across the street. Or a beer at the sports cafe down the block. Or a bowl of food from the Thai closet of a restaurant down the street.
Home to crash right on her bed until the alarm brought the next day.
Whitaker wasn’t supposed to change anything.
Except, while Whitaker hadn’t even spent forty-eight hours in the vacated room across Trinity’s bedroom, while he hadn’t even taken off the scrubs from their shift; he dared to look up at Trinity coming out of the shower in clean clothes, pocketing keys and a wallet, and offered to drive them both to the gym so he could finally take a walk and learn a bit more of the city.
Except, while Whitaker was a lightweight, he became so stupidly funny after two beers on the couch of their living room. Except he made Trinity burst into sudden enough snorts of laughter she’d have to suck a mouthful of oxygen after.
Clear oxygen found in the apartment. Go figure.
For a month. Half a building away and four floors above the ED, Dennis was there to assist with the delivery of Amy’s baby. Every other week, the trips to the farm started to become frequent.
Well, for what it’s worth, he’s wrong.
Every other week –
You’re very good at this.
– Yolanda spent the night. The sex was good enough they’d both usually end up stupidly giggling together, still panting and sweaty and blissed the fuck out, close enough to keep touching if they had the actual strength to keep going.
As soon as Dr. Garcia let her hair down and shredded the hours in the OR off of her, she became Yolanda. The wild curls dropping to her shoulders softened the edges, lines and curves of her intense face. Firm curls would fall into her eyes, making her hands gently respond with a lack of their devastating precision that apparently carried from an OR table, to the kitchen counter and stove, to Trinity’s bed and body.
In a matter of minutes, Yolanda could have the apartment smelling like something too delicious to be boxed pasta. Before Trinity even had an itch for it, Yolanda turned the radio on herself and instead of leaving it be – turned the volume up for music to actually exist as a living presence in the kitchen rather than a fixed background noise.
Always precise, always with means to see through a plan. Hair loose or tied back, Yolanda remained absolutely practical in her existance in Trinity’s apartment. Sex, shower, food, sex, sleep. Coffee made in the morning to fill the ever presented thermos in the surgeon’s bag, easy conversations and small-talk in morning’s sunlight, washing last night’s dishes while waiting for the pot to be done, a fleeing kiss goodbye, and the woman was out of the door before Trinity had time to even think of something to –
Casual. Present enough to lift the suffocating weight of isolation lingering in an empty apartment, but not enough to stop the cluttering loneliness from knocking the door in greeting right after Yolanda left in the morning.
Casual enough to soak in the ease of it, the thrill of it, the fun of it – but not enough to feel like comfort when fortified walls remained between them, not enough to be safe when jarred lines were marked on the sand between them.
Call a therapist.
Trinity didn’t expect the sting of it. The precision of the cut Yolanda absolutely meant to make but surely didn’t aim for such depth – throbbed like the phantom of an old scar. This entire fucking shift had dulled the sharpness just enough for the words and the goddamn tone to be another thing to think about and feel nauseous over.
Nauseous enough to not reach out again. Anger, shame and grief choked Trinity every time she even thought of touching Yolanda. Of relaxing in a warm kitchen with her cooking and music playing when Langdon’s voice had dared utter; “I’d be happy to teach Dr. Santos” and Garcia hadn’t even blinked at the words when she knew that – when –
You’re trouble.
Picking up the phone and saying, “No”, when Yolanda asked to swing by for the evening; was the easiest thing Trinity had done all week. But following up with a quiet, “I think… Yolanda, I think we’re done”, had choked the remaining oxygen from her lungs.
She didn’t catch the flutter of Yolanda’s breathing on the other line; too busy trying to fight her way out the window to sit on the hot metal of the fire escape and try to suck in a clear fucking inhale of air. She did catch a precise delivery of a “cool, thanks for the heads up”, before Garcia hang up the phone.
The volume of the radio remained turned down all through the weekend. The summer air felt like it was actually rotting the apartment. The weight of the shift on the 4th of July, kept throbbing like a scarring cut.
She had to get out of the apartment before it digested her. She had to –
Trinity was still sitting out, on the cooling metal of the fire escape, when the doorbell rang.
Yolanda, was the first thought and it brought relief, anger, shame and grief that the surgeon came anyway. But there was no way; not after that icy goodbye on the phone.
Dennis forgot something, was the second thought but Huckleberry – the absolute freak of a guy – had sent her a picture of a dead rat this morning, with a text that said he was keeping up the good work of catching rodents in places they shouldn’t be.
Who the fuck, was the third thought that had Trinity climbing back inside and going for the door, swinging it open before asking –
“Hey”, Victoria fucking Javadi stood there with a goddamn suitcase by her feet and a tired look in those insanely dark eyes of hers. “Can I crash here?”